


One Morning Out West

by Kat Morgan (Wren_K)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-13
Updated: 2011-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wren_K/pseuds/Kat%20Morgan





	One Morning Out West

One Morning Out West

The stagecoach rattled hard, the iron wheels seeking every rut on the washboard road. JD felt his body lift from the seat and slam back into the thin padding. After a week of such treatment, by all rights he should be numb. He wasn't. Mostly, he was jittery. The short rest stops for fresh horses and a quick meal weren't enough to burn off his nervous energy. Never one to sit still long, a week of confinement had left JD primed to explode.

He shifted, trying to find a position that didn't feel bruised. Failing that, he fidgeted. Absently he worked at the knots of the handkerchief that held the light meal he'd splurged on at the last way station. He wasn't hungry yet, and crumbling bread and a bruised apple only held so much interest. JD tied the bundle back up.

He leaned forward and drew back the curtain covering the window. Dust billowed in. Across from JD, the grandmotherly woman opened her eyes and tut-tutted at him. She'd lost patience with him two days and one hundred and fifty-miles ago. The look she gave him said she'd have no reservations about opening the door and pushing JD from the coach.

JD let the curtain drop back into place. There was nothing to see any way. The few scraps of landscape that weren't obstructed by the cloud of dust seemed to be actually made of dust.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep; anything to make the trip go faster.

This wasn't how JD pictured his arrival out west. Back home, when he'd dreamed of this moment, he'd imagined riding into town on a fine horse; a tall black like the one he'd helped Franklin break last spring. He'd be sitting straight and proud in the saddle, hat low over his eyes. People would notice him -- mark his passage down the street. Maybe he'd throw a wink to a town girl; she'd blush and giggle with her friends...

Another jarring lurch sent his daydream spinning away, leaving JD alone with his thoroughly bruised reality. There was no horse, no giggling girls, just the unforgiving lurch of the stagecoach. After he'd made the proper arrangements for his mother and settled up with Dr. Rawlings, JD'd had just enough money for fare west, a new suit (complete with hat) and a ten-dollar secondhand saddle. Wasn't much to start a new life with, but it would be enough. It had to be.

The coachman's bellow announced their next stop. Not a full way station, just a fresh team of horses and an exchange of the mail. JD didn't quite catch the name. Something Corners, not that it mattered. It wasn't his stop.

And then he heard the gunfire...


End file.
